If it's true, as Toronto players and staff say, that the Rangers showed their “true colors” in dispensing a brand of frontier justice, then so did the Black-and-Blue Jays. Probably by Monday morning, depending on how much ice they used.

Next time, fellas, a word of advice: Pick on someone your own size.

Clearly, little Rougie Odor is in a different weight class.

We can argue who’s right or wrong here -- and let me officially go on record as standing against violence, especially when it potentially involves yours truly -- but the enduring image will be a smaller man taking out a much larger one with a single blow. If Jose Bautista wants to blame anyone, he should start with his parents for making him so tall. No one roots for Goliath.

What can Rangers 2B Rougned Odor expect from MLB's czar of discipline?

To all opponents already bearing a grudge against Odor in his sudden rise to infamy: Complain all you want about the kid, and you might have a case. But if you’re going to take it up personally, you should know Rougie ain’t playin’.

As for the message Jeff Banister sends in a career arc similar to his second baseman’s, well, let’s just say he’s winning games and his players’ loyalty, though it doesn’t appear to be going over so hot in opposing dugouts.

In not even a season and a half as a big league manager, Banister has had pointed words and index fingers with the Astros’ A.J. Hinch, Seattle’s Scott Servais and now the Black-and-Blue Jays’ John Gibbons.

Frankly, I can’t remember another manager who’s mixed it up so much, so soon, which makes you wonder where we go from here.

The pattern started last year with Hinch, after the Astros’ skipper got into a little tiff with Prince Fielder in the middle of a scrum. A different manager might have kept a cooler head and simply pulled his guy back without advancing the rhetoric. But as Banister would prove again and again, that’s not his style. The heated confrontation with Hinch solidified Banister’s place in the clubhouse. Some considered it a turning point in the Rangers’ surprising success last season.

Just to be clear: Banister isn’t necessarily starting these things, unless you think he’s sending messages through his pitchers.

Maybe you remember when Tom Wilhelmsen -- who hasn’t missed many bats this year, a prime reason he was sent out Monday -- hit Chris Iannetta in the middle of a Mariners win over the Rangers. Servais, who used to work for the Rangers, apparently believed that someone told Wilhelmsen to plunk Iannetta. We know this because video shows Servais telling Banister to try something physically impossible outside Circus de Soleil.

For the record, the Mariners loved Servais’ bravado. Robinson Cano usually looks so bored you wonder how he makes it through games without a nap, but he said Servais’ actions meant he had “more respect for him now.” Players love knowing the manager has their backs.

Rangers' Rougned Odor doesn't regret punching Bautista

That’s why Gibbons set himself up for a fine or suspension or both when he returned to the field after Sunday’s fight. He’d already been ejected. By coming back, he won points while getting in a few choice words, too.

Calling the Rangers “gutless” for waiting until Sunday to throw at Bautista in retaliation for last year’s world-record bat flip in Game 5, Gibbons said Matt Bush’s pitch obviously was intentional. Banister’s defense, and a pretty good one, was that he’d never put the tying run on base.

If we’re to believe Gibbons’ assertions, then the insult he should have used was “brainless,” not “gutless.” Whatever else you might think of Banister, he’s not a dumb guy. As I’ve written, he’s an interesting mix of personality traits. He often comes across as the high school football coach his father was. Yet he’s also as new school as any Ivy League geek populating baseball’s front offices these days. A complex man impossible to stereotype.

Also hard to say for certain what the Rangers will look like once he’s done with them. What’s clear so far is that he wants a more territorial pitching staff, which is why Doug Brocail replaced Mike Maddux. From the outset, they made it clear that Rangers pitchers would work inside.

From there, sending even more direct messages to hitters isn’t much of a stretch.

Did someone direct Bush to hit Bautista? No one’s saying. If Bush got that message while warming up, did someone forget to tell him to call it off once the Rangers took the lead? Possibly. Could Bush simply have acted on his own? Doubtful, though there’s no question in my mind he hit Bautista on purpose.

Whatever the impetus, we know this much: Banister will back up his guys to the bitter end. Whether it’s equal parts loyalty, duty or raw emotion is hard to say. At his post-game news conference an hour after the fracas, he still looked worked up.

His style dovetails pretty well with his never-give-up motto, feeding the fight in comebacks all year. If that’s all that comes from it, then no harm, no foul.

We can all be glad nothing serious came from Sunday’s melee other than a bruised jaw or ego. Old timers still shudder at the result after the Lakers’ Kermit Washington sucker-punched the Rockets’ Rudy Tomjanovich. Look that one up on YouTube, kids.

Otherwise, the best advice I can offer the Black-and-Blue Jays and anyone else looking to mix it up with Rougie and the Rangers is bring a lunch. And never walk into an overhand right.